Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: There is no feeling of helplessness quite like the one you feel when your spouse isn’t sure if he shares your loving feelings. You’re clear on the fact that you love him and that you want to make your marriage work. But when he doesn’t share your certainty, this hurts.

I might hear a spouse say: “my husband has been staying in our guest bedroom for about two months. He says he isn’t sure that he loves me in the way that husband should love his wife. But he doesn’t leave because he doesn’t want to do emotional harm to our children. They don’t know that we are sleeping in separate rooms because we get up before them and go to bed after them. I had hoped that this would all iron itself out. But yesterday, I asked my husband if things had gotten any better for him and his response to me was ‘I don’t know if I want to make our relationship work.’ I was taken aback. I asked him how he could say this when our children needed for us to have a relationship. He said that he will always want to be in a healthy parenting relationship with me. But, beyond that, he isn’t sure. He doesn’t know if he wants to continue on with a romantic or marital relationship with me.  He says that I haven’t done anything wrong and that he knows that I am a good person. But he is starting to feel as if perhaps I’m not the person for him because the feelings have supposedly left. I am not sure how I can possibly address this. I try to look nice. I try to be accommodating to him. I bend over backwards to get along with him. I feel as if I am walking on eggshells half of the time. I feel as if I am helpless to watch this entire process happen. This is awful. I don’t know how to do more than I already am.”

I do understand this desperate, helpless feeling because I have been there too. And, honestly, other than trying to make the best of the situation, making the changes that you know he’s been hoping to see, and trying to allow him to catch glimpses of the woman he fell in love with, you can’t “make” him want to have a relationship with you.

Even during the height of my own desperation when I was separated, even I understood this. But it didn’t stop me from trying to do exactly that. Until one day it became very obvious that the more desperate I appeared, the less receptive my husband was to me.

Make Sure You Understand What You Are Projecting: I did notice something in this wife’s wording. She described walking on eggshells and bending over backward. I don’t personally know the situation, but it sounded like a tremendous amount of anxiety and a situation in which she was the one doing all of the giving and making all of the concessions. Sometimes, when you are in a situation like this, your husband can take you for granted and generate a certain lack of respect because of what you are projecting.

I was over accommodating also and I feel like my husband lost some respect for me because of it. I am not saying that you shouldn’t be pleasant and accommodating, but you don’t want to give off the impression that you care about his experiences and perceptions more than your own.

There Are Things That You Can Do For Yourself While You Are Waiting: I know that you probably feel like you are in a situation where all you can do is wait for him to make up his mind. And I know that this is very frustrating. But I found in my own life that if you do things to improve the situation for you personally  (which isn’t just based on your marriage) and you show your husband that you respect yourself enough to prioritize YOU, his attitude toward you may well change. At the very least, he should be less likely to take you for granted. And I’m talking about simple things like pursuing hobbies, seeing friends, working out, or anything that will be positive for your life – regardless of what happens with your marriage.

People often tell me that they have no choice but to just wait helplessly for him to make up his mind. I used to feel this way, too. But then I got very tired of feeling stagnant. And I realized that picking myself up wasn’t going to hurt my chances of saving my marriage. It was going to make things more bearable for me. And I firmly believe that, in the end, it actually helped my chances to save my marriage.

Putting It In Perspective: I think it helps to try to think rationally instead of emotionally. He hasn’t said that he definitely doesn’t want a relationship with you. He said that he doesn’t know. That means that he could ultimately decide that he does.

But how you act right now may have a decent bearing on the outcome. So as frustrated and as scared as I know that you are, sometimes when you are waiting, the best place that you can place your focus on is yourself.

I know that what I have said might sound counter-intuitive.  But, think about it this way.  By focusing on yourself, time will go by faster.  And hopefully when you do reconcile, you will be a stronger woman than when process first started.  That is an advantage.  A hard-won advantage.  But an advantage nonetheless. If it helps, you can read more of my story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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